NORTH CAROLINA: ADOPTEES DON'T NEED NO BAGMAN. BASTARD NATION'S RESONSE TO NCCAR'S CAPITULATION

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization abhors the decision of the North Carolina Coalition for Adoption Reform to drop its HB 445 equal access records bill and replace it with an amended bill (HB 445 2nd ed) that authorizes adoption agencies, for a hefty fee, to voluntarily act as Confidential Intermediaries. The CI system might have been "progressive" 45 years ago. But this is 2007. Outside of the adoption industry's extravagant fondness for perpetual control over the lives of its "clients" and love of the fast buck, there is no rationale for privatized child welfare businesses to act as state-mandated go-betweens for adult adoptees and their first families who are perfectly capable of responsible decision-making and relationship-building without their supervision.

HB 445 restored the right of adopted adults to access their own original birth certificates without interference from anyone. HB 445 2nd ed denies that right, by allowing the adoption industry to control and mediate the free flow of information between adults. To add insult to injury, there is still no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Original birth certificates remain sealed and unaccesible. If the National Council for Adoption didn't think up HB 445 2nd ed, it should have.

Bastard Nation endorsed HB 445 cautiously with the caveat that if the rights of adoptees were compromised away, we would withdraw our support and work to defeat any compromise proposed in its place. We do not support the amended version of HB 445 and request that all references to our support of HB 445 be removed. HB 445 2nd ed is not about rights. It's not even about reunions. It's about state power over the lives of adopted adults and their families.

HAWAI'I: BASTARD NATION LETTER TO GOV. LINGLE:--PLEASE VETO HB 1830 BABY DUMP

Bastard Nation has faxed the following letter to Gov. Linda Lingle. Lingle vetoed a similar bill in 2003.

May 22, 2007

The Honorable Linda Lingle
Governor, State of Hawai`i
Executive Chambers
State Capitol
Honolulu, Hawai’i
96813

RE: HB 1830: Safe Haven/”Safe Place for Newborns”—Please Veto

Dear Governor Lingle:

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization urges you to continue to reject enactment of so-called “Safe Haven laws” in Hawai’i and to veto HB 1830.

Bastard Nation agrees whole-heartedly with your June 20, 2003 veto statement in which you assert that “legalized abandonment” subverts hanai and traditional Hawai’ian family practice and values. “Safe Havens” endanger all families.

There is no epidemic of newborn abandonment and neonaticide in Hawai’i. Even “Safe Haven” proponents admit this. An archive search of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin indicates that since 1996 there has been one reported prosecutable newborn death (manslaughter in Koloa, Kaua’i) and no reported cases of unsafe newborn abandonment. What need then is there to legalize newborn abandonment when illegal abandonment doesn’t happen?

The mechanistic anonymous “Safe Haven” system of infant abandonment rejects the long-standing Hawai’ian cultural practice of extended family care. Moreover, HB 1830 rejects informed consent and best practice standards of child welfare such as the collection of a full record of identifying information and social and medical histories for children surrendered for adoption. HB 1830, with its promise of parental anonymity, eliminates the right of identity to those “surrendered” through “Safe Haven” programs, by denying them access to their original birth documents and heritage information.

HB 1830 denies parents--particularly non-surrendering parents (usually the father)--their right to due process by eliminating their ability to locate the dependency proceeding to which they are a party. HB 1830 replaces professional best practice standards with unprofessional and unethical "non-bureaucratic placement" by letting parents abandon solely for convenience or out of ignorance. The law preys on parents who honestly believe they are surrendering their child for adoption instead of providing evidence to be used in a dependency hearing at which they have a right and duty to appear. The law encourages parents literally to default at their hearings.

There is no evidence that “Safe Haven” laws have decreased unsafe abandonment or saved lives. A 2005 survey of county coroners in California, for example, found that the number of newborns dying from abandonment and neglect since 2001 remained at 13-15 per year in that state despite a well-publicized “safe haven” law.

Unfortunately, “Safe Haven” proponents have convinced legislators and parents that there are only two options: The Dumpster or the “Safe Haven.” The responsible alternatives to baby dumping are not mentioned: family care and communication, counseling, public assistance, temporary surrender, and permanent surrender for adoption, That omission keeps new and potential parents ignorant of real solutions.

Why “fix” something that isn’t broken—especially when the fix trivializes baby abandonment by presenting it as just another consumer choice? No blame. No shame. No name.

Anonymous baby dumping is not an acceptable cultural practice in Hawai’i now. No law should make it acceptable for the future.

Please veto HB 1830.




Bastard Nation is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in North America. We are dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult adoptees. We advocate the opening to adoptees, upon request at age of majority all government documents which pertain to the adoptee’s historical genetic and legal identity, including the unaltered birth original birth certificate and adoption decree.

AN OPEN LETTER TO NCCAR FROM PAT MARLER, OKLAHOMANS FOR OPEN RECORDS

Pat Marler writes a response to the North Carolina Coalition for Adoption Reform's decision to replace it's open records bill with a Confidential Intermediary system proposal which makes adoption agencies the gatekeeper of adoptee information. Bastardette will be posting her own comments about the amended bill today or tomorrow.

Dear Roberta,

As a Co-Chair of Oklahoma’s open record organization, OORAH, Inc., I know about the Confidential Intermediary Program instituted in Oklahoma in 1997. confidential intermediary related to me that the CI Program has been a failure and I've heard from other states, like Illinois, that theirs is a failure too.

Adoptees complain it isn't fair the state charges a fee, and feel it's a "rip-off." Even though the CI program reunites them, it does not give them the right to their records. They still have to petition the court to get any birth documents.

The CI system is a "bone" thrown to adoptees; with the state saying "you are not capable of taking care of your own relationships, you are still a child under our authority--forever."

I resent this kind of attitude from the state. I hope you do, too.

Pat Marler.
Co-Chair, Oklahomans for Open Records and Adoption Honesty



Pat is also a member of the Bastard Nation Executive Commititee and is BN's treasurer.

BAD BINKIE AWARD RECOGNITION

Finally some recognition--sort of. Three letters from ungrateful bastards criticizing the recent University of North Carolina Daily Tar Heel's adoptee bashing editorial were printed in today DTH along with a picture of the binkies that accompanied the letters.

I'm ashamed to say that after promoting the BBA, Bastardete didn't get around to sending the Tar Heel editorial board the binkie of her disgust. She did however, buy a bag of binkies at CVS and will be sending them out to future offenders.

*******
PERSONAL NOTE: I've been busy the last few days pimpin' my new MySpace page. I've got it about 92% the way I want it (for now), but am having a couple small tech problems still. I've got some BN stuff, but this is really my personal page.

Bastard Nation needs to have a My Space presence, and I hope to have a BN page up within the next 10 days. If you've got some free time now though, go over and take a look at what I've done. Some Old Bastards have crawled of the woodwork and I've put up some Russian music videos. If you've got a MySpace account and want to be my Friend, just hit the add button. Almost everybody is welcome. Those who aren't know who they are.

Photo: Daily Tar Heel

GOLDEN BINKIE NOMINEE: BOB KATZEN, BEACON HILL ROLL CALL

I don’t know how BB Church feels about awarding a Golden Binkie, but surely Bob Katzen, a reporter for the Malden Observer/Beacon Hill Roll Call deserves special recognition for his May 7 review of S 63, the Massachusetts Adoptee Black List bill. In a mere 208 words, Mr. Katzen managed to call adopted adults “children” 8 times. That’s once every 28 words. It takes about 75 seconds to read the article out loud at normal speed, which mans every 9.375 we're called children. Hand that man a binkie!

Here’s the entire article:

Beacon Hill Roll Call

---

By Bob Katzen/BOB@BEACONHILLROLLCALL.COM

GateHouse Media News Service

Mon May 07, 2007, 05:57 PM EDT

Give adopted children access to birth records (S 63) — The Senate approved and sent to the House a bill giving children adopted before 1974 and after Jan. 1, 2008 access to their birth certificates including the names of their biological parents.

The measure applies only to children who have turned 18 years old.

Children born between 1974 and 2007 would not have automatic access but would still be able to attempt to get a court order to obtain the certificates. The 1974 cutoff date was chosen because the state in 1974 approved a law that required children to get a court order to obtain the records. The measure also sets up a registry that allows biological parents to provide their contact information if they are interested in a reunion with their children.

Supporters said that adopted children have a right to get the names of their biological parents. They noted that this would save lives by allowing these children to have access to their families’ medical history. Opponents said that the bill would increase the number of abortions because biological parents would not longer be guaranteed anonymity.

Supporters countered that states with similar easy access laws have a lower rate of abortion than those with restrictive access laws.

AMERICAN LEBENSBORN: GUEST BLOGGER BARBARA RAYMOND

The Associated Press recently ran a remarkable story on the Nazi Lebensborn program. Those of us involved in US adoption reform were quick to see similarities between the "modern" US adoption practices of fake birth certificates, identity erasure, eugenic child distribution and secret adoption and Lebensborn. Author Barbara Raymond articulates those similarities in the essay below, published here with her permission.

Like many involved in adoption, I read with interest and sadness the recent AP story about the World War Two-era Lebensborn program, which involved the kidnapping of “racially pure” non-German children and their placement with German adoptive parents. Social engineering at its worst, it was meant to strengthen what Hitler considered the master race, and its victims have had long-lasting repercussions. The victims of America's own Lebensborn program may suffer even longer than their European counterparts.

Our Lebensborn program was run by Georgia Tann, who operated out of Memphis, Tennessee from 1924 to 1950, kidnapping children from poor Southern families and giving them to wealthy adoptive parents. She considered her goal -- to make poor children middle class citizens -- noble enough to justify the deaths of more than 50 children in her care. Protected by political boss Edward Hull Crump, she arranged over 5,000 illegal adoptions.

Like those involved in Europe's Lebensborn program, Tann left behind a tragic legacy of bereft, grieving parents; sad, troubled children; and separated siblings. Like Hitler's helpers, she preferred to steal children with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Her legacy continues today. While building her black market business she shaped modern American adoption -- popularizing it, commercializing it, and corrupting it with secrecy. To cover her crimes and to please her wealthy adoptive parent clients, she began the practice of falsifying adoptees' birth certificates to portray their adoptive parents as having borne them. It caught on, and today all of our country's six million adoptees have phony birth certificates.

I have spent years trying to bring the story of this little-known social engineer to light, compelled in part by my role as an adoptive mother. I saw how much my daughter needed to know her other parents. I was able to find them, but the continuing inability of most adult American adoptees to access their true birth certificates ensures that many will never know their people. Those who don't know history repeat it. I hope that the obverse is true, and that when legislators realize who began denying adoptees self-knowledge, they'll vote to allow adoptees access to their original records.

Barbara Raymond, author of The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption, published last week by Carroll & Graf.

NORTH CAROLINA RE-WRITE: ADOPTEE RIGHTS OUT, ADOPTION AGENCIES IN!

And the Bad Binkie goes to....The North Carolina House Judiciary Committee!

Not only did the committee ditch a clean birth certificate access bill (HB 445) yesterday, but amended it into a Draconian fox-in-the-henhouse bill which puts adoptee identity "rights" into the hands of the state's adoption agencies-- the very people who profit most from sealed records.

AND YOU THINK YOUR STATE IS BAD...
Laughingly called a "compromise," HB 445 "2nd edition"will "allow" adoption agencies, if they desire (and are still in business!), to act as "confidential intermediaries" between adoptees 21 years and older and a "biological parent." With the written consent of each, the agency "could" facilitate contact between the parties or (gasp!) share identifying information. The Associated Press notes that the compromise bill would permit agencies to "obtain" and share non-identifying information between the two sides. Obtain? Don't agencies keep that information on file already? For all we know, they don't, and Bastardette bets her advance copy of The Baby Thief, that plenty of people want to keep it that way. North Carolina currently does not even permit agencies to freely pass on information between adoptive parties upon mutual request. The state, in fact, bars agencies from telling adopted adults what county they were born in, though the poor bastards are "allowed" to know the ages of their progenitors. Thus, consenting adults are barred from receiving information about themselves not only from the state, but from each other.

HB 445's co-sponsor, Rep. Margaret Dickson, says that the compromise is "good". It will help the State of North Carolina because it "removes the courts from the process." (of what? vetting the "worthy") If lawmakers really want to help the State of North Carolina they can start by removing its tar heel from the neck of its adoptees. That, of course, would mean acknowledging that adoptees are not perpetual binkie-sucking infants under state care. Why are CHILD welfare and placing agencies even to be charged with the dissemination of personal information pertaining to adults? The term "boy" comes to mind. So does uppity. And grateful.

The compromise rejects the point of the whole original bill: unrestricted access to the public record of one's birth. The civil right to possess one's own unaltered birth certificate to do with what one pleases (like the unadopted do daily) again morphs into state-facilitated and monitored reunionism in which the adoption industry and its government toadies control the information and consequences. Has it never occurred to anyone, deformers included, that adoptees might just want to own their own birth certificates; that they might just want to know, without acting on it, the information that these documents contain; or that they just might want to act on that information in their own good time--not on the state's schedule? For all the hysterics of the secret keepers and their NCFAnoid companions, it is government control and interference that creates "unwanted" contact" and "coerced reunions" not the free flow of information and adoptee autonomy.

As to the compromise at hand: why should the adopted be forced to beg greasy-palmed thugs, slippery adoption industrialists, and professional identity erasers who created the "anonymous" mess in the first place to release information that rightfully belongs to adoptees? Not only beg for it, but pay for the "right" to beg for it. You don't think agencies will perform their newly acquired non-funded government mandate for nothing, do you? Or that the adoptacrats won't mediate the procedure to its personal and professional benefit, under the exegesis of "your own good" or the "good" of its former birthfamily "clients"? If it's reunion you want, you're better off hiring a competent professional searcher who won't be cherry-picking your information with one hand and jerking you off with the other.

"AT LEAST WE'LL GET SOMETHING GOING IN THE STATE."
An adoptee is quoted in today's Raleigh News and Observer calling the sub bill "a baby step, but it's a step in the right direction." But adult adoptees aren't babies, and non-ID is a detour to oblivion. If it's taken North Carolina this long to even consider permitting agencies to voluntarily dole out non-ID at their pleasure and occasionally facilitate "reunions," something most adoption agencies in the rest of the country have done for decades, can anyone seriously believe that original birth certificates are even on the North Carolina map?

Adoption in North Carolina is governed by vile reactionary patriarchal laws that one would expect to find in a Taliban enclave, not in 21st Century America. As a consequence, the adoptee rights movement in North Carolina has not been as strong or solid as we would like. Under those circumstances compromise can come fast and easy. I know, like, and respect NCAAR director Roberta MacDonald, yet NCCAR's roll-over anything-is-better-than-nothing turnaround buries any chance of records access in North Carolina for decades. Something is not better than nothing. Compromise adversely effects campaigns in other states where activists will be viewed as pushovers for a pretty smile and an ephemeral promise. It is tremendously difficult to pull a bill that you've created and nurtured. In 2002 I was in Sacramento the day that California Open made the decision to withdraw its beautiful clean bill rather than see it raped by cheap politicians on a mission to "protect" first mothers from their "shameful" pasts. Yet, the did it and with dignity. They shed some tears, pulled the bill, and nursed their wounds at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

NCCAR's webpage says, "We substituted but we're not done YET." I believe that NCCAR believes what it says, but by grabbing at the fragile evasive reunionist straw of potential non-ID access for a few, which has nothing to do with the unrestricted release of government documents for all, NCCAR guarantees that the civil rights of adoptees in the state are done. For a long time.

The message to the state and deformers alike is simple: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. We don't need your "protection." We don't need your compromises. We don't need your reunion registries. We don't need your confidential intermediaries. We don't need your fear. You have caused us enough damage. We want our papers. We wants our rights. Get out of our way.


NOTE: Blogger continues to do flaky things with links. The News and Observer link may not go to the article directly, but you should be able to find it with a search if necessary.

STEPHANIE BENNETT VS THE OHIO ADOPTION INDUSTRY 3: THE HUSTLE

A couple new developments in the Stephanie Bennett case were reported over the weekend:

Rick Armon from the Akron Beacon Journal* reports A Child's Waiting license will be reviewed by the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. Last year ODJFS found the agency out of compliance for several paperwork and procedural violations in the case (I have a copy in my possession) and ordered it to submit a corrective plan to assure than such errors won't happen again. Armon says the agency has failed to submit an acceptable plan. More important, A Child's Waiting, according to records obtained by the Beacon Journal, has been the subject of numerous investigations in the past. In its seven years of operation, it has received an incredible seven citations by the state and has twice had its license reduced to "temporary." So far, I have been unable to find details on those citations.

Despite its problems, according to its homepage, A Child's Waiting has placed over 1200 children in permanent homes since it's inception in 2000--a whopping 255 last year. Many of them are listed there by first name, race, and age.

How do they generate these kids?

HUSTLE: THE NAME OF ACW'S GAME
For-profit adoption agencies are not built on altruism. They exist to make money off the misery, shame, and personal crises of women and children. Sometimes adoption is necessary and good. For the Bessemer sisters who run A Child's Waiting, it is very good: a meat grinder churning out new identities, new families, and big bucks. The agency survives on a constant flow of personal tragedy and slick promotion. Remember its flagship stunt Be My Baby?

ACW employs Ronda Berger as a "child recruiter." What she does is anybody's guess. There is no "child recruiter" job description on the ACW web page nor are Ms Berger's credentials listed other than she is "married and has three active children," and enjoys working with "members of the adoptive triad." With the high rate of unmarried pregnant women today, she must be quite busy chucking fallen fruit into her basket.

I have no idea if Ms. Berger is part of Stephanie Bennett's story. We all know, though, that Stephanie Bennett was fast-tracked. All she had to do was mention the word "adoption" to her counselor at GlenOak High School and as fast as Bastardette can say Georgia Tann, ACW was on the scene, lawyer at the ready. In less than 24 hours Baby Evelyn was on the paper trail to her new forever home.

This is fast by any shyster standards, but there's more. Jonathan Herron, Lead Pastor for Catalyst "a new way to do church" (whatever that means) in Kent, Ohio writes in his blog about how lickety split he and his wife Amber, were able to adopt their son from ACW "I cannot say enough good things about A Child's Waiting," Herron shills for the agency. "For example it typically takes 2 years for a private, open, domestic adoption. From the day we sent our paperwork into the agency until the day Josiah was born and came home with us, was exactly 4 months!" Four months?

Amber's blog is even more instructive giving us a look at how the adoption "process" at ACW works. Like Amber, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the speed with which the adoption was accomplished:

July 27, 2006 (Home Study approval meeting):
Overall, we feel very encouraged because the director told us she thinks we will go fast due to our age, having no children and being educated. She told us a story of a couple who went for an interview with a birthmom last week and ended up going home with a baby that afternoon! I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that. It makes me glad that we are going ahead with our adoption party now so we can be prepared, even in a short time-frame.

Within 7 days of that posting, their "match" was made. In less than a month a newborn was placed with them in an open adoption.

ACW's is a foster care contractor. Their list of placements includes 14, 15, and 16 year olds. Obviously, there is a genuine need for permanency for these kids, but do they need to be salaciously advertised like survivors of the Middle Passage on the auction block? Do total strangers really need to know a teenager's dress size? There is also a lucrative trade in disrupted adoptions for those unfortunate souls who don't make the cut in their forever families and are unceremoniously thrown back into the adoption pool for a second or third chance. How many of them are internationals lost from their countries and cultures forever? How many are abused?

Then there's the November 2001 "adoption store" at Akron's Rolling Acres Mall, where's ACW's foster children were hawked in retail space offered gratis by an over-enthusiastic mall management that wanted to help "waiting children." Set up for National Adoption Month, ACW featured adoptable foster children from five counties showing them off in blown-up photos and flyers. Photo-listing books were also available so visitors could "leisurely page through profiles of waiting children from all over the state." By the end of the campaign, ACW had conducted 127-in-store intakes (they usually did 30-60 a month.) As result of the publicity, (WKDD-FM helped) the agency got lots of phone calls, and were invited into churches, neighborhood groups and a teachers' union fair to spread their good news. (emphasis mine)

In much of the rest of the world, A Child's Waiting would have gotten the boot years ago. The $64,000 question, then is what does it take for an adoption agency to be run out of business in the State of Ohio.

Complaints have been filed against A Child's Waiting and other bottom feeders for years. In the case of ACW, they were serious enough to get the license reduced twice. Other complaints have reportedly been settled before they reached the legal stage or through the Better Business Bureau. And then there's Be My Baby and the advertising of children at the mall like they were Christmas ties. But crassness, cheap promotion, and bad taste aren't illegal. Taste and ethics are one thing; the law quite another.

QUESTIONS FOR OHIO OFFICIALS
Despite what some bloggers have reported, A Child's Waiting at this point, is not being "run out of business. " It's license, is under review. Here are a few questions I have for the ODJFS. Maybe you have some others:

What role does professional ethics play in adoption agency licensing procedures?

Why aren't complaints, investigations, and citations against adoption agencies posted online for public perusal?

Why does the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services/counties contract out foster care placement to a for-profit agency whose license has been reduced and is currently under review?

Why was ACW permitted in GlenOak High School?

What is the relationship between ACW, Plain Township officials, GlenOak High School and especially school counselor Thomas Saltsman? Did Saltsman receive a finder's fee for Evelyn Bennett?

What does it take for an agency to lose its license permanently?

**********

Baby Evelyn and her paps have reportedly, under advice from A Child's Waiting, left Ohio.

**********

*I'm' having problems with the link. It will probably go into the paid archives soon anyway, so I'm posting it below.


AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, May 5, 2007
May State cites agency used in adoption
Violations are found during investigation of family's accusations
By Rick Armon
Beacon Journal staff writer

A local adoption agency accused of urging a teen mother to run away from home last year has been cited by the state for several violations regarding the adoption process and its state license will be reviewed, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Friday.

The state began investigating A Child's Waiting in Copley Township in December after a Canton couple claimed that the agency told their 17-year-old daughter to run away so it would be easier to give up her then-4-month-old child without her parents' interference.

State investigators concluded that there was no evidence that Stephanie Bennett was asked to leave home. But the agency was cited for numerous procedural and paperwork violations that could jeopardize its license because it has a history of similar citations, state records show.

The agency also failed to submit acceptable plans detailing how it would make sure the violations don't occur again, the state said.

State spokesman Dennis Evans said he didn't know when the license review would begin. The agency's license could be reduced to ``temporary'' status, revoked or left alone, he said.

A telephone message seeking comment was left with the agency.

Without her parents' knowledge, Stephanie Bennett signed papers in September giving custody of her daughter to A Child's Waiting. It is legal in Ohio for a minor to give up a child without parental permission.

Stephanie ran away from home and handed over the baby while she was staying in Carroll County. She now says she regrets the decision and has accused the agency of not providing adequate counseling. She is fighting in court to regain custody.

It's unclear how the state investigation may affect the custody case. A message seeking comment was left with Stephanie's attorney.

According to state investigative reports, Stephanie accused her parents of abusing her and her child and said that was why she decided to put Evelyn up for adoption. The allegation of abuse had not been made public before.

Stephanie's mother, Judy Bennett, said Friday that local investigators looked into the accusation and concluded it was untrue.

She contended the baby's father -- who has not been identified publicly -- threatened Stephanie and ordered her to get rid of the child. Despite the conclusion of state investigators, Judy Bennett said she still believes the agency told her daughter to run away.

A Child's Waiting was founded in January 2000 and has handled about 1,200 adoptions since then, according to the agency's Web site.

The agency has been cited seven times previously for violations because of complaints, and its license has been reduced to ``temporary'' twice because of previous problems, according to state records.
Rick Armon can be reached at or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com.

MAY 4, 1970

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

OHIO--Neil Young

**********

COLUMBUS FREE PRESS - Bob Fitrakis

Why Four Died in Ohio: Governor Rhodes and His Relationship with the FBI

The Lethal Media Silence on Kent State's Smoking Guns

CUB: CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Call for Presentation Proposals

Concerned United Birth Parents Retreat

Hamburger University and Hyatt Lodge
Oakbrook, Illinois Sept. 28th- 30th 2007

Hamburger University, McDonald’s beautiful 88-acre corporate campus, is the setting for CUB’s annual retreat this fall. Once again, CUB invites all members of the adoption triad and their significant others to meet with others who understand our common challenges. The CUB retreat theme has always been one of sharing and support and we are seeking proposals along these lines.

We are eager to hear from old friends and new, and hope to have many wonderful presentations to choose from. We will get back to you promptly and hope to have a brochure out in June. Even if your presentation is not chosen this year, we hope you will attend what promises to be a wonderful and renewing retreat experience.

IMPORTANT DATES
Submission Deadline (Midnight ET): May 20, 2007
Proposal Notification: on or before May 31, 2007

Target Audience
CUB expects anywhere between 75 and 150 participants. The retreat is open to all members of the adoption triad and their significant others. However, most of the participants of past retreats have been birth parents, followed by adoptees, with some adoptive parents and significant others also attending.

Selection of Retreat Presenters
The Retreat Committee is interested in both experienced professionals with expertise in the field as well as triad members who would like to suggest topics for, serve on or moderate a panel. The Committee will review all of the proposals and responses will be sent to all who submit proposals, via email, by the proposal notification date. In the event that further time is needed, all participants will be notified.

Types of Presentations
The Retreat Committee is seeking proposals in the following categories:

• Lecture/discussion: Lecture on topics related to support of birth parents and/or adoptees. Up to four keynote sessions are contemplated in the morning and afternoon of Friday the 28th and Saturday the 29th. Question and Answer periods are encouraged. Approximately 90-120 minutes per session is standard although we will consider shorter or longer periods depending on the topic.

• Panel discussion: Design and moderate a panel to discuss issues relevant to support of the participants. If needed, moderators will be assisted in selecting panel members from retreat participants with relevant experience. Approximately 90-120 minutes is standard although other time periods will be considered.

• Multi-media Presentations: Musical performances, Film showings/discussion, Poetry submission/reading for open mike session, book authors/discussion, artwork including paintings, sculptures and multimedia displays – All will be considered for display or presentation during various time slots.

• Support Groups: Peer group leaders interested in facilitating support group discussions on a variety of topics related to diverse reunion and post-reunion topics.

Retreat Schedule
To achieve a balanced program, the Retreat Committee will determine the days and times that sessions are scheduled and reserves the right to change the length of any session.

Information Desired in Proposal
We are looking for the following information on your brief (one-page) proposal:

*A brief bio of the presenter

FOR ALL: Name, address, email address and phone number

• For lectures this may include credentials in adoption reform or support, past experience as a presenter, familiarity with presenting to this audience
• For panels this may include position in the triad, years in reunion and any other relevant information about you.
• For peer group leaders, this may include your experience with support group leadership
• For multimedia any relevant information is welcome
  

• A title for the presentation (lectures and panels and possibly multimedia) that informs the reviewer of the subject matter.

• A brief abstract
• For lecture or panel discussion – brief outline of areas to be covered and method of delivery including need for any audio visual equipment – expected audience (newly reunited, searching, adoptees, all)
• For peer group leader – outline of the type of group you are interested in leading: i.e. long term relationship, adoptees, multiple surrender, other.
• For multimedia – Discussion of your presentation as needed and also audio visual equipment requirement
• A 2-3-sentence description that can be used in publications.
  

Electronic Communication
All who submit a proposal will receive e-mail notification that the proposal has been received. Once the review and selection of proposals is complete, you will receive an email notice about the proposal’s status.

Registration Discount
Concerned United Birth Parents does not provide honoraria for presenters. Presenters are expected to cover travel, lodging and related expenses. A $50 discount on the conference registration fee will be provided to the four main session leaders.

Audio Visual Equipment
Concerned United Birth Parents provides a/v equipment as needed

Submit Proposals
Via email to: emptyross@comcast.net

Or

Via regular mail to:
Mary Ross
40W751 Campton Meadow Drive
Elburn, Illinois 60119